RINS WINS MOTO3 IN ARAGON TO CLOSE IN ON CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS!

Alex Rins led four KTM riders to the finish line in Aragon Spain to take his fifth Moto3 GP win of the season and move closer to championship leader Luis Salom of Red Bull KTM Ajo Factory Team.

Maverick Viñales and Alex Marquez took second and third and Luis Salom held off attacks by Miguel Oliveira to salvage fourth place with his KTM RC250 R in what was another great display or riding by young Spanish riders.

Rins and Viñales fought a hard two-way battle for the lead in the final laps with Rins finally surging ahead. “I knew if Maverick was in the lead in the final lap he might win so I had to really push,”Rins said at the finish. Rins finished four hundreds of a second in front of Viñales, enough to advance into second place in the championship points, displacing Viñales into third. Salom continues to lead but his margin was cut in Aragon from 19 to just nine points. Aragon is a challenging circuit with an undulating layout, steep downhill sections and challenging corners.

Other outstanding rides in Aragon came from Germany’s Philipp Oettl (KALEX-KTM) who was consistently up with the leaders and held onto fourth place until the final stages to finish sixth. It was also a heroic effort by German rider Jonas Folger who fractured his leg in a crash in the last round at Misano. Folger finished seventh and picked up some valuable championship points.

Red Bull KTM Ajo Factory rider Arthus Sissis was a solid ninth but teammate Zulfahmi Khairuddin crashed in the final stages after a race incident where he and another rider touched, catapulting the Malaysian rider off into the gravel. Aragon was the 17th consecutive win by KTM in the Moto3 category!

Riders now have a two week gap before the completion resumes for the ‘fly away’ races in Malaysia, Australia and Japan before returning to Europe for the finale in Valencia, Spain.